Overdimensioning for Consistent Performance in Grids

Abstract

Grid users may experience inconsistent performance due to specific characteristics of grids, such as fluctuating workloads, high failure rates, and high resource heterogeneity. Although extensive research has been done in grids, providing consistent performance remains largely an unsolved problem. In this study we use overdimensioning, a simple but cost-ineffective solution, to solve the performance inconsistency problem in grids. To this end, we propose several overdimensioning strategies, and we evaluate these strategies through simulations with workloads consisting of Bag-of-Tasks. We find that although overdimensioning is a simple solution, it is a viable solution to provide consistent performance in grids.